Pocatello might not be a major tourist destination, but the new head of the city’s tourism organization is hoping to give people a reason to get off the interstate.

Jeff Glissendorf has a background in the tourism industry. Previously the general manager of TownePlace Suites by Marriott in Pocatello and a member of the Idaho Travel Council, he is now the director of tourism and marketing at Visit Pocatello-Chubbuck — and the agency’s first full-time paid employee. Before Glissendorf took the lead, the organization was run entirely by a board of volunteers.

While Southeast Idaho isn’t as well known for tourism as some of the other regions of the state, it does still bring in a significant amount of people and their spending money.

According to information provided by Visit Idaho, in Southeast Idaho — which includes Bannock, Bear Lake, Bingham, Caribou, Franklin, Oneida and Power counties — tourists spent $309.8 million and generated 3,940 jobs in 2021, the most recent year for which statistics are available.

Glissendorf said there’s a misconception that hotels and other accommodations are taking in most of the tourism money, but that’s not the case. Food service accounted for about 30.5 percent of the tourism dollars spent in Southeast Idaho in 2021, while accommodations were about 18.9 percent. 

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Glissendorf has some big plans for his new role, which he began April 1, including encouraging the disparate local tourism and development entities and government bodies working more closely with each other.

“One of my goals has always been to bring everybody together with us — tourism and economic development side by side,” he said. “But Chubbuck wants to have their own tourism identity, and the city of Pocatello has their own agenda, and Bannock County has their own agenda with a wellness complex. Everybody has their own agendas. It’s not as cohesive if everybody's doing their own thing, working their own way. I want to get everybody working toward that same goal.”

Part of that would get the different organizations working together to plan events. So, say, Bannock County plans a concert at the wellness complex for a Friday evening and the following afternoon there’s a festival downtown.

“Then we can get people into town for Friday and stay the night and they’re not just coming to Pocatello to see Lee Bryce. They're coming in because there's two or three things going on,” Glissendorf said. 

One of the challenges of his job is trying to get local residents and business owners on board with more tourism. While the opinion that tourism isn't good isn’t held by everyone, there is some of that sentiment in town.

“I think a lot of us are comfortable with our smaller community,” Glissendorf said. “I've lived in five or six different states. I left California, and one of the reasons you leave is because you sit on the freeways for so long. You run into Walmart, and it's a 15-minute wait, no matter what time you go during the day. We used to shop from midnight to 1 in the morning on purpose. Every time you go to a restaurant, you have a 20-minute wait. So those are things that we're not used to here in the past. You could walk into Texas Roadhouse and as long as there's not a Simplot Games or wrestling or some tournament going on, you generally get a seat soon. … I think people just don't want their mountain town to be a crazy busy mountain town.”

Growth, however, is likely inevitable, and Glissendorf’s opinion is that we should embrace it.

“We’re all going to grow,” he said. “Have you seen the 30-year plans that show density the entire way from here up to Idaho Falls, all the way down inside to the freeway? Down the road, you're going to see houses and stores and stuff 25 years from now, all the way up to the corridor. We can't really stop it. As long as people are having kids and money keeps booming, they’re going to come.”

He is careful, however, about which events and places he recommends to tourists.

“There's cool local events, and we're trying to decide which ones of those to push,” Glissendorf said. “Like the Movies in the Park in Chubbuck — those are great, but do you want a bunch of tourists showing up? Or do you want it to be a local community event?”

He said someone recently asked him not to tell tourists about a particular breakfast place in town. And another business in town goes out of its way not to advertise itself to out-of-towners.

“They don't want a ton more business because anytime you go over there, there's a line of eight to 10 people,” he said. “It's kind of one of those hidden gems a lot of people want to stay hidden and want it to be a gem.”

However, there are plenty of other attractions to recommend to people traveling through the area.

“There's so many more events — the car shows in downtown, the concerts at Sho-Ban, the concerts at the wellness complex, the farmers markets, Revive @ 5, the Monday night food trucks,” Glissendorf said. “Whatever it is, there's a lot of stuff to send tourists to.”

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Another part of Glissendorf’s vision for Visit Pocatello-Chubbuck is to make some upgrades to the Pocatello Visitors Center at 2695 S. Fifth Ave.

Right now, the space is mostly just a desk and then a wall full of brochures. The plan is to renovate the space and add some interactive displays such as a 3D version of a buzzsaw shark from the Idaho Museum of Natural History and a butterfly box from the Butterfly Haven.

“It’s a three-year plan probably, but down the road, we'd have a little more of a hub here where people are stopping in and you give them a reason to stop,” he said.

Additionally, Glissendorf would like to add an electric vehicle charging station and a rest area sign to alert interstate travelers to the center as a break spot.

Glissendorf said the visitors center gets 10 to 12 visitors on a busy day and three or four on a slow day, and he’d like to see those numbers increase going forward. Part of that may include giving visitors free tickets or discounts to area restaurants and attractions such as museums and events at the fairgrounds.

"Texas Roadhouse has always done a free Cactus Blossom and Mackenzie River does free Lodge Poles," he said. "So I'd like to have some kind of discount card so that if a tourist is stopping in, there’s a little bit more to entice them.”

He’d also like to get the city to add a crosswalk between the visitors center and Upper Ross Park and after that maybe try to get a food truck to park by the visitors center.

“One issue that I’ve asked the city about is there's no crosswalks,” Glissendorf said. “People want to go back and forth, they want to use this as a restroom, so I'm requesting the crosswalk goes in next year, and we'll see if that happens or not. … I want it to be a little more welcoming.”

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Visit Pocatello-Chubbuck has a variety of ways it can help local businesses and organizations.

Its budget has been increasing as tourists keep spending more money in the area. Idaho has a 2 percent hotel tax, and 45 percent of those tax dollars go back to tourism organizations. In Southeast Idaho, that money is split between Visit Pocatello-Chubbuck, Southeast Idaho High Country based in Lava Hot Springs and Bear Lake Valley Convention and Visitor Bureau.

Last year, Visit Pocatello-Chubbuck was granted around $230,000. In early August, the Travel Council granted the organization about $270,000.

“The first few years I was a part of this grant, it was $80,000,” Glissendorf said. “Tourism taxes have gone boom, boom, boom. So the anticipation is that we're going to get $300,000, $400,000 as we keep going.”

With that budget, Visit Pocatello-Chubbuck spends money advertising in various places, including a lot of digital advertising but also things like billboards and advertising in print publications.

“So if there are many billions in the state, we want a bigger piece of the pie,” Glissendorf said. “COVID woke up a lot of eyes to this neck of the woods, so that's the goal is to get that piece of the pie through advertising all these different ways.”

The organization also attends trade shows to get word out about the area and sponsors a lot of local events such as Simplot Games, Pocatello Downs, high school rodeo, Pocatello Marathon and Four Peaks Gran Fondo.

“When I go to trade shows, I’m representing everybody,” he said. “I'm going to try and sell soccer fields at the wellness complex, I'm going to try and sell indoor stuff for the MEC, I'm going to try and sell softball for Chubbuck — anything that can get anybody into town.”

Glissendorf said they also put out a monthly newsletter and use that to highlight area businesses.

“The city of Chubbuck, the city of Pocatello, Historic Downtown Pocatello, they're excited to see tourism,” he said. “They're like, ‘Woohoo! What can you do for us?’ I'm like, ‘I'm here to advertise for free. I get a grant. I'm not charging you anything.’ For example, we did a spotlight on The Yellowstone Restaurant and did a newsletter and put it on the website. We don't charge restaurants or (other businesses) for any of that.”

Glissendorf is committed to doing everything he can to keep certain events in the area as well.

“We don't want to lose things like high school rodeo with the Mountain America Center up north — just the possibility of losing things is out there now more because you've got this big beautiful venue north that will house anything,” he said. “So we're always in a little panic with that, but the MEC’s building another building, and it's going to be an indoor turf that's gonna have a lot of fun on it. So I’m really hoping we will fill those shoulder seasons with a lot of indoor tournaments. That's the goal."

As of late July, visitor numbers at local museums were up 5.83 percent.

“Everybody’s doing pretty good from an economical standpoint,” he said.

He also wants local businesses to be in the know and prepared when big events do come to the Gate City.

“I've heard of stories of, ‘Oh, we had to shut down because we ran out of food. We didn't know Simplot was going on,’” Glissendorf said. “So educating them on ‘Hey, there's Simplot this weekend. You guys are going to get slammed.’ ‘There's a state wrestling tournament in town this week.’ … The restaurant should prepare for that and be staffed for it to represent town.”

It’s clear that Glissendorf is a man on a mission.

“I'm very passionate about (tourism) obviously,” he said.